September 30, 2014

Cities could put a massive dent in global warming, with or without the help of national governments.

That’s the word from a new report by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), a network of major cities around the world, along with the Stockholm Environment Institute and Michael Bloomberg, the United Nation’s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change. The top line number from the paper is that city governments could cut the world’s annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 3.7 billion tons in 2030 and 8 billion tons in 2050 on their own, with no national direction.

Specifically, there are four things city governments can do. The biggest move would be improving building energy use through efficiency and weatherization retrofits, more energy-efficient lighting and appliances, and more rooftop solar to cut fossil energy use. Next, cities can move toward pedestrian and public-transit-reliant traffic through better urban planning. One quarter of the average product’s shipment occurs in urban areas, so the third thing cities could is improve the logistics and efficiency of rail shipments. Fourth, better waste systems and recycling operations can reduce the GHGs from garbage and landfills, and waste.

As the study notes, pledges by national governments so far to cut their emissions have focused on policies that cover multiple industrial sectors, like electricity and industrial production. “Their pledges and action plans have seldom considered or reflected the impact of urban climate actions,” the report said. “Cities also have unique and strong influence overs several policy levers — such as urban planning and public transportation — that may be less available to national actors.”

What this means is that emissions reductions from specifically city-based actions can be considered in addition to national reductions, rather than as a piece of the latter. And when the potential of the two is added together, the reduction is significant.

CREDIT: C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group

“The reality is that the work is going to be done in cities,” said Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. “It will be done mostly by mayors. And then we will drive our respective nations’ national agendas around these issues.”

Furthermore, once we’ve emitted carbon pollution, it stays in the atmosphere for centuries. So annual emission rates don’t matter nearly as much as the total amount we emit, ever. And cumulatively, the urban actions outlined in the report could avoid 140 billion tons of GHGs by 2050. The latest work from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) pegged the total amount the world can emit and still stay under 2°C of global temperature rise — the threshold beyond which scientist believe climate change will become truly dangerous — at 1,102 billion tons (1,000 billion metric tons). We’ve already emitted 585 billion tons, and under a business-as-usual scenario the IPCC thinks we’ll blow through the rest sometime in the early 2040s. So while cities can’t single-handedly save us, they could buy the world a fair amount of time. [Climate Progress]

Endorsed by over 30 countries countries, including the United States, all members of the E.U., and many tropical forest countries, the New York Declaration on Forests aims to at least halve the rate of loss of natural forests globally by 2020 and strives to end natural forest loss by 2030. It also supports the private-sector goal of eliminating deforestation from the production of agricultural commodities such as palm oil, soy, paper, and beef products by no later than 2020. More than 40 major companies, including Kellogg's, Walmart, and McDonalds also endorsed the deal. The group also pledged to restore more than one million square miles of forest worldwide by 2030.

"I asked for countries and companies to bring bold pledges, and here they are," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a statement. "The New York Declaration aims to reduce more climate pollution each year than the United States emits annually, and it doesn't stop there. Forests are not only a critical part of the climate solution — the actions agreed today will reduce poverty, enhance food security, improve the rule of law, secure the rights of indigenous peoples and benefit communities around the world."

Deforestation accounts for about 10 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide. A decade ago this number may have been closer to 20 percent before Brazil stemmed forest destruction and China ramped up carbon emissions. About 95 percent of current "Intact Forest Landscapes" are concentrated within tropical and boreal regions around the equator and in the northern regions of Canada and Russia. Action at the summit focused on the Amazonian forest, some of the most ecologically diverse and environmentally degraded in the world, as well as West African forest. [Climate Progress]

The savage heat waves that struck Australia in 2013 were
almost certainly a direct consequence of the human release of greenhouse gases,
researchers said Monday. It is perhaps the most definitive statement climate
scientists have made that ties a specific weather event to global warming.

Five groups of researchers, using distinct methods, analyzed
the heat that baked Australia for much of last year and continued into 2014,
shutting down the Australian Open tennis tournament at one point in January.
All five came to the conclusion that last year's heat waves could not have been
as severe without the long-term climatic warming caused by human activity.

"When we look at the heat across the whole of Australia
and the whole 12 months of 2013, we can say that this was virtually impossible
without climate change," said David Karoly, a climate scientist at the
University of Melbourne who led one research team. [NY Times]

September 7, 2014

The best-selling electric car in the world, the Nissan Leaf, logged its best-ever U.S. sales in August, selling a record 3,186 units.

This marks its 18th consecutive month of year-over-year sales increases, and brings the total sold in almost four years to more than 61,000.

In fact, with more than 12,000 plug-in vehicles---this was the best-ever U.S. sales total for electric cars.

The Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, logged sales of 2,511, its best performance since August 2013. A total of 67,698 Volts have been sold in the U.S. since the December 2010 introduction of the world's highest-production series hybrid.

Deliveries of the BMW i3 soared in August to a remarkable 1,025, with the sales of the i3 REx range extended version representing 60% of those sales.

Sales of the Tesla Model S luxury electric sedan are estimated at about 1,200 units.

Sales of the Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid, the third highest-volume plug-in car on U.S. roads, fell sharply in August to just 818 units.

Each of Ford's Energi plug-in hybrid models beat the plug-in Prius in sales last month, the C-Maxat 1,050 and the Fusion at 1,222.

A Bloomberg News article suggests that investors ought to view a judge's ruling yesterday as a "Wakeup Call" that deep water oil drilling is inherently risky.

A U.S. judge's watershed ruling means the final cost to BP Plc for the 2010 Gulf oil spill may eclipse $50 billion, wiping out years of profits and highlighting the risks of drilling as the industry pushes into more dangerous areas such as deeper waters and ice-bound Arctic fields.

Yesterday's court decision that BP acted with gross negligence in the Gulf of Mexico disaster may hamstring the company financially as the industry's search for resources becomes more expensive and dangerous. Companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are also facing increasing pressure to show investors they can still grow as production declines.

"The decision also casts a cloud over BP's future. Its reputation has already been sullied and important holdings in Russia are at risk because of tensions in Ukraine. In addition to the $28 billion in claim payments and cleanup costs it has paid, BP has been forced to divest itself of more than 10 percent of its oil and gas reserves, along with valuable pipelines and refining facilities to pay claims and increase its profitability. BP shares fell by nearly 6 percent Thursday, closing at $44.89."

If BP is being forced to divest to maintain profitability, perhaps investors should be considering divesting themselves.

Halliburton has agreed to pay $1.1 billion in a settlement that accounts for the majority of the lawsuits against the company for its role in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The settlement, which includes legal fees, still has to be approved by the District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The settlement includes punitive claims of property damage and damage to the commercial fishing industry, the company said in a release.

China has pledged to reduce the amount of carbon it emits per unit of GDP to 40-45 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

It has already launched seven regional pilot markets in a bid to gain experience ahead of a nationwide scheme.

"We will send over the national market regulations to the State Council for approval by the end of the year," Sun Cuihua, a senior climate official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told a conference in Beijing on Sunday.

The national market will start in 2016, although some provinces would be allowed to start later if they lacked the technical infrastructure to participate from the outset, she said.

The Chinese market, when fully functional, would dwarf the European emissions trading system, which is currently the world's biggest.

You may have heard that the latest draft report from UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been released.

Here is a quick one word summary of the report. Irreversible.

The catastrophic changes to our climate that we are voluntarily choosing to impose on our children — cannot plausibly be undone for hundreds of years or more.

Yes, we can still stop the worst — with virtually no impact on economic growth, as an earlier IPCC report from April made clear — but future generations will not be able reverse impact on our climate that we are too greedy or shortsighted to prevent through immediate action.

The report was leaked to the AP and others. That means we can see the unvarnished language.

The scientists want us to know that "currently observed impacts might already be considered dangerous", but it's the future we should be worrying about the most:

Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.

Translation: Continued inaction would be catastrophic and immoral.

The risk of abrupt and irreversible change increases as the magnitude of the warming increases.

Translation: The more we delay, the worse it can get.

Without additional mitigation, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts globally.

Translation: Future generations can't simply adapt to the ruined climate we are in the process of handing over to them. Either we start cutting carbon pollution ASAP or we should just stop pretending we are a rational, moral species.

But it is important to remember — "Irreversible Does Not Mean Unstoppable." The IPCC report makes it clear we can still stop the worst from happening, at a very low cost, but we have to start slashing emissions ASAP. Now. What are we waiting for?

Savings due to avoided health problems help offset -- and in some cases greatly outweigh -- the costs of carbon dioxide-cutting policies in the United States, according to a new study.

The study, led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that health benefits offset between 26 and 1,050 percent of the cost of greenhouse gas reduction policies. The study examined three different types of climate policies: a clean-energy standard, a transportation policy targeting on-road vehicles and a cap-and-trade program.

Health benefits occur because the policies not only cut carbon dioxide emissions but also lead to reductions in pollutants that form ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter, the researchers said. Both pollutants can cause asthma attacks and heart and lung disease.

"If cost-benefit analyses of climate policies don't include the significant health benefits from healthier air, they dramatically underestimate the benefits of these policies," said lead author Tammy Thompson, formerly at MIT and now a researcher at Colorado State University, in a release.

The results of the study were published yesterday in the journal Nature Climate Change. The study was funded in part by U.S. EPA, the Department of Energy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The researchers call the study the most detailed assessment to date on the interactions between climate policies, air pollution impacts, and the costs and benefits of both. The team used models to examine the impacts of climate policies on local and regional air quality, focusing on ozone and particulate matter levels between now and 2030.

The three policies were chosen because they resemble approaches that have been considered in the United States. Of the trio, the clean energy standard would require emissions reductions from power plants that are similar to those in EPA's recently proposed clean power plan.

Industry and business groups have charged that the policy would lead to job losses, economic damage and inequality among states.

But the MIT study found that a clean energy standard would lead to health savings of $247 billion compared to a $208 billion cost. The savings from a cap-and-trade program would be higher, more than 10 times the $14 billion cost, they said.

Savings came in the form of avoided hospital admissions and saved sick days linked to reductions in ozone and particulate matter. The savings remained relatively constant among the policies.

"Carbon-reduction policies significantly improve air quality," said Noelle Selin, an assistant professor of engineering systems and atmospheric chemistry at MIT and co-author of the study, in the release. "In fact, policies aimed at cutting carbon emissions improve air quality by a similar amount as policies specifically targeting air pollution."

The health co-benefits from a transportation policy, though, would recoup just 26 percent of its costs, due to a high price tag of more than $1 trillion.

The results take into account present air quality regulations, but the authors note that benefits would decline if EPA changes the base line by issuing policies between now and 2030 that would require large reductions in ozone, particulate matter and other conventional pollutants.

For all three of the carbon policies, co-benefits would become tapped out after a certain point and carbon emissions reductions wouldn't lead to greater improvements in air quality.

"While air quality co-benefits can be comparable with policy costs for present-day air quality and near-term U.S. carbon policies, potential co-benefits rapidly diminish as carbon policies become more stringent," the MIT study said.

The authors said that carbon policies, though, would need to advance beyond that point in order to effectively manage climate change.

"While air-pollution benefits can help motivate carbon policies today, these carbon policies are just the first step," Selin said in the release. "To manage climate change, we'll have to make carbon cuts that go beyond the initial reductions that lead to the largest air-pollution benefits."

"I believe, from all my experience, that building the infrastructure to help facilitate that development [of tar sands] will help speed that development, and ultimately I think that contributes to climate change," he told ThinkProgress. "For me, it's a climate change issue."

Hassebrook is also concerned about the potential for TransCanada to use eminent domain to secure the land of the holdout landowners.

"The whole idea of eminent domain is we take peoples' property rights when there's a compelling public interest," he said. "From my perspective, I don't see the compelling public interest for the people of Nebraska in helping a Canadian company sell Canadian oil to the Chinese."

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I am passionate about finding ways we can work together to create a sustainable future. I am a husband, father, chair of Sustainable Lexington and founder of RePower Partners, a solar power and clean energy company.